


Negotiation

by surexit



Category: The Eagle | The Eagle of the Ninth (2011)
Genre: M/M, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-27
Updated: 2013-02-27
Packaged: 2017-12-03 19:59:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/702032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/surexit/pseuds/surexit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the film, Esca and Marcus travel north.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Negotiation

What Esca wanted to do was go north again. Somehow, at the beginning, this surprised Marcus, but Esca fixed him with a cold flat stare and said, "You've made your pilgrimage, I will make mine." The implication of equivalence between their family pains took Marcus aback, even now, but Esca didn't drop his eyes until Marcus nodded. They were to go to just before the wall, where Esca had relatives living.

It was strange to follow Esca. The shining, endless camaraderie that had bound them together in the aftermath of the Eagle's retrieval started to lose its sparkle, and Marcus remembered all the small betrayals and pains of the time with the Seal People, the weeks of searching for a clue which Esca had held tight-mouthed all along, the ways in which they still did not understand each other.

Still, when battle came, he thought, they still fought well. He leant down to the verge and wiped his dagger on the grass. They had been waylaid about forty miles from Lugudonum by bandits looking for Roman riches, but Marcus' sharp ears and Esca's sharp eyes had given them warning far in advance of the four men's arrival. They'd been sloppy fighters, as well, easily dispatched.

He stood up and looked for Esca, a smile on his lips. They had moved in harmony, and it had been so reminiscent of the fight for the Eagle that Marcus had been reminded of why he and Esca were together now, here, on this dusty road on the edge of the known world. They had a tangle of blood debts between them that might never be unstuck.

Esca wasn’t looking at him. He was looking down at one of the dead men with a slight frown on his face. The man was wearing sleeveless tunic, and the ink that marked his bicep could clearly be seen. “He was Brigantes,” Esca said, not turning to Marcus. He sounded unhappy.

“Oh,” Marcus said intelligently. “Do you... recognise him?”

“We don’t all know each other,” Esca said sharply. “The ink marks him out.”

Marcus stood waiting while Esca crouched next to the body and muttered something to it in his own tongue. “Pass me the wine,” Esca said without looking up, and Marcus did so, resisting the urge to sigh impatiently. Esca wasn’t much longer, anyway, just taking a sip from the bottle with his eyes on the dead man, and then he stood up and passed it back to Marcus to be packed away again. “Let’s move on,” he said. “We can make Lugudonum in an hour or two.”

***

They could only afford one bed in an inn in Lugudonum, which they were used to, and Marcus was already lying on his back, bad leg as flat and straight as he could get it, when Esca came back to the room. He’d been in the inn’s common room, singing songs and swapping stories, in a language (or languages - Marcus had started to realise that Esca had command of several, all of which sounded the same to him) that Marcus couldn’t understand. He’d asked Esca to translate a few times, at the beginning of this journey when they were still close, but even when the words were rendered into Latin much of it was still incomprehensible to Marcus. When Esca was asked to explain why a story in which everyone died began with the wrong portion sizes being served at a feast, he gave Marcus such a blank look that Marcus stopped asking for the words in his own language. It was no use having the words if he didn’t have the tools to comprehend them.

The colour was high in Esca’s cheeks when he entered. “Comfortable?” he asked, a little sharp.

Marcus glanced at him, eyebrows raised. “Yes,” he said cautiously.

“While Brigantes dead rot in the rain.” Esca started to take his clothes off, movements uneven. Marcus averted his eyes.

“You killed him,” he said, but honesty compelled him to correct himself. “Well, I killed him. You killed two of the others, though.”

Esca drew in a breath, words obviously on the tip of his tongue, but then suddenly the fight went out of him and his shoulders slumped. He nodded. “And I’m not sorry for it,” he said.

Marcus never really understood Esca, but there was no doubt that right now he needed to wait for whatever thoughts were roiling through Esca’s mind. Esca continued taking his clothes off in silence, and climbed into bed beside Marcus in silence, and lay in silence, until Marcus was twitching his toes convulsively in the desire to speak. Finally, finally, Esca said, “I’m not sure what we’re doing.”

“Travelling to Talenium,” Marcus said blandly.

“Why are you with me?”

“I said you could choose what we did next.”

“It’s that simple for you? I suppose it is.”

Marcus shrugged a little uncomfortably. “I’m a simple man.”

Esca snorted. “I know, believe me. Point you in the right direction and watch you go.”

Marcus frowned. There rose in him, all of a sudden, the irresistible desire to do something surprising, something to startle Esca. He didn’t think much further before he was rolling over to prop himself above Esca and push their lips together. He felt Esca let out an unsteady breath against his mouth, and the heat of it shocked him back into himself. He rolled away again, and accepted the ache in his leg as his due for such precipitate action.

He realised, after a moment of shame, that Esca was laughing softly. “Oh,” he said, when he saw Marcus looking at him. “It’s just rather an odd way to answer the question of why we’re still travelling together. But an acceptable one, I suppose.”

Marcus, torn between bravery and a desire for Esca to stop laughing, tried another kiss. It went down quite well.


End file.
